not later than 12 months after May 20, 2009, develop, make available for public comment, and submit to the President and to Congress a National Strategic Plan to End Homelessness, and shall update such plan annually;

review all Federal activities and programs to assist homeless individuals;

take such actions as may be necessary to reduce duplication among programs and activities by Federal agencies to assist homeless individuals;

monitor, evaluate, and recommend improvements in programs and activities to assist homeless individuals conducted by Federal agencies, State and local governments, and private voluntary organizations;

encourage the creation of State Interagency Councils on Homelessness and the formulation of jurisdictional 10-year plans to end homelessness at State, city, and county levels;

annually obtain from Federal agencies their identification of consumer-oriented entitlement and other resources for which persons experiencing homelessness may be eligible and the agencies’ identification of improvements to ensure access; develop mechanisms to ensure access by persons experiencing homelessness to all Federal, State, and local programs for which the persons are eligible, and to verify collaboration among entities within a community that receive Federal funding under programs targeted for persons experiencing homelessness, and other programs for which persons experiencing homelessness are eligible, including mainstream programs identified by the Government Accountability Office in the reports entitled “Homelessness: Coordination and Evaluation of Programs Are Essential”, issued February 26, 1999, and “Homelessness: Barriers to Using Mainstream Programs”, issued July 6, 2000;

conduct research and evaluation related to its functions as defined in this section;

 1 develop joint Federal agency and other initiatives to fulfill the goals of the agency;

 ¹ collect and disseminate information relating to homeless individuals;

prepare the annual reports required in subsection (c)(2);

prepare and distribute to States (including State contact persons), local governments, and other public and private nonprofit organizations, a bimonthly bulletin that describes the Federal resources available to them to assist the homeless, including current information regarding application deadlines and appropriate persons to contact in each Federal agency providing the resources;

develop constructive alternatives to criminalizing homelessness and laws and policies that prohibit sleeping, feeding, sitting, resting, or lying in public spaces when there are no suitable alternatives, result in the destruction of a homeless person’s property without due process, or are selectively enforced against homeless persons; and

not later than the expiration of the 6-month period beginning upon completion of the study requested in a letter to the Acting Comptroller General from the Chair and Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee and several other members regarding various definitions of homelessness in Federal statutes, convene a meeting of representatives of all Federal agencies and committees of the House of Representatives and the Senate having jurisdiction over any Federal program to assist homeless individuals or families, local and State governments, academic researchers who specialize in homelessness, nonprofit housing and service providers that receive funding under any Federal program to assist homeless individuals or families, organizations advocating on behalf of such nonprofit providers and homeless persons receiving housing or services under any such Federal program, and homeless persons receiving housing or services under any such Federal program, at which meeting such representatives shall discuss all issues relevant to whether the definitions of “homeless” under paragraphs (1) through (4) of section 11302(a) of this title, as amended by section 1003 of the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing Act of 2009, should be modified by the Congress, including whether there is a compelling need for a uniform definition of homelessness under Federal law, the extent to which the differences in such definitions create barriers for individuals to accessing services and to collaboration between agencies, and the relative availability, and barriers to access by persons defined as homeless, of mainstream programs identified by the Government Accountability Office in the two reports identified in paragraph (7) of this subsection; and shall submit transcripts of such meeting, and any majority and dissenting recommendations from such meetings, to each committee of the House of Representatives and the Senate having jurisdiction over any Federal program to assist homeless individuals or families not later than the expiration of the 60-day period beginning upon conclusion of such meeting.

arrange national, regional, State, and local conferences for the purpose of developing and coordinating effective programs and activities to assist homeless individuals and pay for expenses of attendance at meetings which are concerned with the functions or activities for which the appropriation is made; 2

publish a newsletter concerning Federal, State, and local programs that are effectively meeting the needs of homeless individuals.